DaleRussell's Blog

It is odd, that on this day, in which we think back to our ancestors travels to a new world, I am day dreaming about a horror film from the 70’s and thankful for satellite phones.

Only in America, could Thanksgiving, The Exorcist and a cold and lonely boy at war all come together.

It was Thanksgiving morning in Iraq when our phone rang at midnight.

The boy was on the other end, and somehow, by the Grace of God, we managed to answer the phone without destroying the power grid in Maine. (see previous post for explanation)

The boy was upbeat. At least, as upbeat as a Marine, living in a tent in the frozen winter of Iraq can be.

He has no base. No Halliburton, three meals a day kitchen. No heaters. No computers. No workout rooms.

He says he and his band of frozen brothers travel the back roads of Iraq, far from any major cities, looking for what Marines look for during a war.

A good fight.

Apparently, there hasn’t been many. He chuckled when he told us the first shots of his platoon were fired.

“Stray dogs, got a little too close for comfort”

Don’t worry, the shots were in the air. The rules of engagement for rabid dogs still rest on the side of the dog.

He got all of our Christmas presents early.

Hand warmers, Under Armour underwear, and chicken and tuna in a bag.

He loved the food, and says he cooks it in the morning over a fire. The MRE’s are disgusting, he assures us.

He’s a coffee drinker now. Not for the taste, but because “it keeps me warm”

His company, in large armored vehicles - the modern day equivalent of a cavalry troop - travel thousands of miles back and forth, driving all day long and sometimes into the night. They are on never ending patrol.

He says at the end of the day he is covered in dust in places that he didn’t know existed on a human body.

I remembered, my first steps across an Iraq desert, following the Georgia National Guard in 2005.

Your foot hits the ground and the dust swirls up around your ankles, a fine, powdery mixture of grit and grime. In time, it blankets you. On patrol, for never ending hours, I can’t even imagine the level of filth.

A Marine’s dream.

He said they patrol all over the region, visiting tiny towns, far away from the big cities. They often drive over the desert, away from the bomb ridden roads.

That sounded good to a mom and dad half asleep at home in a warm bed.

He enjoys the kids they run into. He says they crowd around the Marines, looking into pockets for food, candy, pens and pencils.

That was one of the biggest surprises I saw in Iraq. The children had nothing to write with. They loved reporter’s pens. I went through dozens, handing them out like candy. Nothing to write with. Think about that the next time as you walk through Toys R Us.

He said the kids are friendly, smiling, but they need schools where they can get an education.

I, of course, found this ironic coming from a boy who picked sloping around the desert during a war over the warm, verdant lushness of a college campus in Georgia.

At night they circle the vehicles, like good old cavalry men would do, pitch small two man tents, and try to get some sleep in the bone chilling cold of a December desert night.

It may be a desert, but it is tooth rattling cold up north, where he is.

And it’s only November.

He sounded good. Sounded upbeat. Said he wanted more tuna and chicken and coffee bags.

Then he said they were headed to a town called Sinjar for Thanksgiving. It was going to be a long drive, but there would be turkey and dressing and hot rolls and, creamy cranberry sauce at the end of the road.

He didn’t seem excited about the drive, but I felt sure the turkey was of great interest to a boy feasting on instant coffee and fire roasted tuna out of a bag.

Sinjar. Sounded vaguely familiar. I would never have made the connection without Goggle, but it didn’t take long to remember.

Sinjar was where the opening scene of the Exorcist was filmed. The scene where the archeologists find that creepy, satanic medallion on a dusty hillside.

To this day, if I hear even the music from that movie, I would lie in bed for hours before I could fall asleep. The music is bad enough, I refuse to ever watch it again.

 

But on this Thanksgiving, I find myself giving thanks for that horror movie that gives me just a hint of a place where my boy will be breaking bread and giving thanks for, God knows what, during this seemingly, never ending war.

And I’m giving thanks for those satellite phones that bring the ends of the earth together for a few precious moments.

Let’s begin at the ending.

No one was killed. The ankle will heal. The shoulder is coming around. The bruise on the forehead can be covered with a little make-up.

 

Now, the rest of the story.

 

The phone rang at midnight. My wife sleeps next to the phone.  The phone rings and rings. I bolt up, waiting for her to answer, knowing its our boy, calling from Iraq. His company has been moved to another part of the country because, well, because they need some Marines to pound on someone.

I hear her punching buttons, saying hell-o, hell-o. But the phone keeps ringing. I jump up, in pitch blackness, to run around the bed.  I reach the nightstand, while she is still mumbling hell-o, hell-o and pushing buttons.

 

Bear in mind, we own a phone with a keyboard that looks like a NASA launch command center.  I don’t know what buttons she was pushing, but I’m pretty sure we launched a nuclear attack on Libya last night.

 

I knock over her water reaching for the phone. It has gone dead. There is no voice on the other end.  As I stand there, still in pitch blackness, I hear the phone ring downstairs. But, not in the receiver in my hand. I hit talk and nothing. I’m disoriented, confused, but certain the phone is ringing downstairs and thinking she pushed some button to kill the phone in my hand.

 

I rush to the hallway.

 

Remember the pitch black part, now.

 

I run head long into the wall at the doorway.  It felt a little like a Tommy Nobis tackle.  But the phone is ringing, and the boy is on the other end, so I run through the pain.

 

I fly down the stairs, rush around the corner, slip and lightly sprain my ankle and reach the still ringing phone.

 

I pick it up. Nothing. Dead air.

 

I hit message button and hear the boy say, “Hey, I arrived. Everything’s fine, call you tomorrow.”

 

I go upstairs, mumbling, clean up the water with my wife's robe and tell her I will put some tape on the phone next to the TALK button. I then look down and realize she had punched the “FIND RECEIVER, number 1 button” That was the ringing I heard downstairs.  The beeping of the receiver to alert anyone looking for it.

 

This is the untold ravages of the Iraq war. This madness has to end.  

It began with a computer disk with hundreds of e-mails written by DOT Commissioner Gena Evans.

Written, before she was at the DOT, while working at other state agencies.

Written on state computers, often during office hours.

Many are personal. Some, very personal, even sexually explicit.

But, the e-mails were more than that.  They took us on a trail to personal relationships that some say conflicted with her professional responsibilities.

We spent weeks, talking to dozens of people, reading thousands of pages of state files trying to piece together exactly what those relationships were and how did Gena Evans handle them at the time.  

This is, after all, the Commissioner who has demanded no ethical lapses from her employees at DOT.

Monday and Wednesday night, we air our story at 6 and 10:00. 

 

 

Now, it’s personal.

Since 2005, I have been consumed, no, I’d say obsessed with news of Iraq.  I have read thousands of daily news articles, hundreds of magazines and close to a dozen books on the subject of war. 

I watch three nightly news, recorded by the wonders of TiVo to track my favorite war correspondents, to learn what they have learned.

 

My favorite is CBS’s Lara Logan, but that is a column for a different day.  

I know, after all the talking heads have, thank the dear lord, stopped talking; the only ones I truly trust are those whose boots have been on the ground.

 

They know. They have seen it, tasted it, talked to those living it, and generally do their best to let you and I know what is happening.

 

In October of 2005 I travelled to Baghdad to embed with  Georgia’s 48th Brigade, making its historic, push into the “War on Terror.”

 

It was a different war than the one I often read about. But, it is always different when you are there, which is why reporters love doing what reporters do.  You are an eyewitness to the very, rough, hardscrabble draft of history.

As a minor, local TV reporter, getting an opportunity to cover a war is a once in a lifetime experience.  But, I also, had an ulterior motive.

 

All of this helped prepared me for this moment.  All the debate, the finger pointing, the weapons of less destruction, the tarred and feathered liberators, the surge, the purge, the cut and run skeptics, and the stay forever stalwarts mean nothing to me now.

 

My son is in Iraq.

 

He is a Marine.  According to rules parents and loved ones are sent, I can only tell you this:

His last name is Russell.  He is somewhere, far from nowhere.  He is in a company of like minded Marines. His job is dangerous, but I can’t describe it.  His briefings are extensive and he won’t tell us what they are told. He did mention in one email “it’s not as calm as you might think.”

 

As any former Marine would enjoy, his living existence is Spartan.   A PVC pipe and a plastic bag will do for toiletries. Food is infrequent and often out of a bag.  Sleep is rare and at times in the back of a vehicle, that I’m not supposed to describe, while thumping down a road that I can’t pinpoint for you.

 

He did tell us he was, at one point, sleeping in a train station “just like the teenage mutant turtles.” I could see his wry smile as he said it.

 

Before he left, he gave us one gift.  It was a model, used by his sister from an earlier fashion company job.  But, he dressed it up in camo and combat gear.  The model was the hit of a send off  party we threw for him and we dubbed him Lance, for reasons any veteran would understand, but I’m not supposed to explain.

 

Lance sits in my office.  Looking like a valiant warrior.  Or some high fashion cross dressing model in combat gear. I’m not sure which.

 

But, in my office, he stays, until the Iraqi winter thaws and a band of soon to be brothers come home.

 

Lance (view photo album to the right) stares at me as I write. He, in an odd and strange way I can’t quite explain, comforts me.

 

You can read all the books, watch all the reporting, even get a taste of  the Iraqi desert, bomb ridden roads, and night patrols for yourself and nothing can prepare you for night after night of waiting for the next email.

 

The war is no longer a political debate.  Who wins and who loses matters less.  I trust any president to keep us safe, but like all the other parents, lovers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and on and on, of the men and women not only talking the talk, but walking the walk along a dusty, barren, desert land, we care most about one thing:

 

Keep your head down.  Stay safe.  Do us proud.  And come home. Come home.  

Sorry I haven't appeared on TV recently, but I've been busy eating.

I just returned from a trip to Italy.  Saved for three years and what did I get out of it?
 
Pasta.

Pasta is a once a week treat at home.

In Italy, I ate it at every meal. Plates of it. Gobs of it. Slurping, heavenly, spoonfuls of it. Then I tasted my wife's pasta and we passed pasta plates around, then I drank wine, and skipped desert to save room for more pasta at the next meal.

It got to the point where I  stopped walking. They dropped me off at the highest point, and I rolled down to my next destination.

I must have weighed a good deuce and a half by the end of the first week.
I wish they had enlarged my cubicle for me back at work, before I flew home.

Don't get me wrong. Italy was nice.

Venice was pretty. Kind of like a Disney ride, that the crews forgot to clean the week before.  The architecture was stunning, the canals were breathtaking, but the best part was I found they had restaurants, osterias, and tartattorias - all different names and they all served pasta.

So, I ate my way through the back streets of Venice, pausing only long enough to glance at the canal and mutter, "nice, but when do we eat again?"

What a country, when you find that they have a meal called an aperitif in which you drink and eat a big spread before you go to dinner.

One travel tip:  That  gondola ride you heard so much about. To ride one you must open a Swiss Bank account.  Then , I found you can pay fifty cents to go from one side of the canal to the other. So, I gave my wife  two euros and we went back and forth 4 times, while I sang Amore.

She was not amused.

We went to Florence for a couple of days. Lots of real old stuff. Statues on every corner. They use,  unimaginably beautiful art the way we use No Parking signs in America.

It is mindboggling, but there was a problem.  All those marble statues got in the way of the Trattoria's.

We found one divine restaruant near the statue of David.

I told the owner the art was really nice, but what I truly loved about the city was his crostini con funghi and pappa al pomodoro.
He got misty eyed and hugged me.  Then, he invited me back . He doesn't realize I plan on coming. 

We left for the museum where the Statue of David is kept.  It was truly amazing, but watching my wife, gazing up between the thighs of a huge, perfectly formed marble man is a little disconcerting.

That was enough culture for the day.  It was  back to the streets where we found a pizzeria that fed you while standing up at the bar.

You didn't even have to waste time sitting down.


I'd reached a point, where I'd start off every meal with a confession: "My name is Dale and I'm a pastaholic"
 
Then, we would order.


My kind of country.

Don't even get me started on the Gelato.

I don't know much, but I do know this:

I am so glad I wasn't a Vice Presidential candidate when my children were teenagers.

 

 

I’m watching the Democratic convention - this made for TV, star spangled showcase of red, white, and talking till your blue in the face.

I’m watching Hillary behind the podium, talking about her historic candidacy.

I’m thinking not of Hillary, or McCain or Obama.

I’m thinking of my mom.

My mother was born two years after the passage of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote.

She lived in a simpler time, in a simpler place.   

 

She and her bothers and sister cavorted around the dove white, snow capped hills of Michigan in an era when the most exciting thing to do on a weekend was to toss a pair of skates over your shoulder and head to the nearest frozen pond.

 

It was a time when women were often told – no you can’t.  A time when women were expected to marry, have children, and stay home to take care of them.  Absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Unless, you have other dreams.

 

Skipping a chance for an early marriage, she traveled the country then went off to college, where she met a slow talking Southern boy from the South.  He had a twinkle in his eye, an enticing southern accent, and a uniform from the Big War.

 

College was put on hold. Marriage soon followed.

 

Then, we came.  The kids.  Three in three years.  Six years later, I followed.  Four boys, who terrorized every neighborhood we lived in with the youthful swagger of the James gang.

 

I asked her once, if I was a mistake. She said “Honey, all four of you were mistakes.”

 

I can’t remember if she was smiling when she said it.

 

She spent nearly two decades raising four boys. Football, basketball, baseball. She once thanked God that soccer hadn’t hit the south whle we were growing up.   

 

She didn’t raise a family, she ran a sports franchise.

 

Through it all, she waited.  She had other ideas. Other dreams.

 

When I started school, she went back to work.  Then back to college. Then graduate school.

 

She graduated with a masters in counseling the same semester I graduated from college. To this day, she is the most highly educated person in our family.

 

She taught school, becoming an icon in local Catholic education.  She taught at  St. Josephs, an inner city Catholic school.  She gave her heart, soul, and mind to hundreds, if not thousands of young men and women.   

 

To this day, men and women will stop me on the street to introduce themselves and tell me, “You have no idea how much your mother touched my life.”

 

She taught social studies. She loved history.  She loved her students even more.

 

She ran a home in which racial intolerance was forbidden and respect for women was a given.  

 

She was a feminist before I knew what the term meant.  A card carrying liberal married to a die hard conservative.

 

Perfect parents for a future journalist, who learned to listen to both sides of every argument.

 

She would have been 86 this year.  Cancer cut her life short.  I was thinking of her last night.  I’m sure she would have been watching the convention.  

 

I don’t know what she would have thought of Hillary, but I’m pretty sure she would have felt a swelling sense of pride, somewhere deep down, buried beneath the snow covered hills of her childhood, when men often said – no you can’t – she would have thought to herself:  Yes I can. Oh, yeah, brother, yes I can.

Standing in front of the Pentagon on September 12th, 2001, I watched as rescue teams removed bodies from the bowels of the symbol of America’s military power.

A producer back in Atlanta asked me what the mood was.

I could barely put it into words.  The overwhelming feeling was one of shock. Followed closely by abject sadness. Numbed, everyone on the scene walked about as if at a funeral.

 

A funeral for an entire nation.

 

Later that week, my photographer Tony D’Astoli and I entered the Hart Senate Office building to interview Senator Zell Miller.

 

 

As, often was the case with Tony and me, we got lost.  The two of us could get lost in the Fox 5 parking lot.  We ended up on a back service elevator, and made our way up to Senator Miller’s office.

Then October 15th, aides in Senator Tom Daschle’s office opened an anthrax laced letter.

Somewhere in the news, federal agents disclose that the letter made its way to the Senator’s office via a service elevator.

 

The same elevator Tony and I traveled on a month earlier.

 

At the time, no one knew how many letters were mailed and when.

 

My doctor put me on Cipro and the anthrax attack suddenly took on a more personal note for me.

 

I followed the case closely.  If it’s possible, I believe I was madder at the Anthrax murderer than I was the Al Qaeda nihilists.  Once, it seemed clear the Anthrax was home grown; I couldn’t believe that an American would paralyze the nation with fear at a time, when we were trying to recover from our loss.

 

Someone had committed murder during our own funeral.

 

I hated that person. Deeply.  Having covered cowards, who mail or plant death in letters and knapsacks, like Roy Moody, the southeast mail bomber and Eric Rudolph the Olympic park bomber, I felt I knew this man.

 

Deeply paranoid and narcissistic. He would be a smart man, who blended in with the workforce around him.  Yet, to people who knew him best, there would be an element of fear every time he entered a room.    

 

Now, the FBI says that man is Bruce Ivins. Earlier they hinted it might be another scientist, Steven Hatfield.

 

Hatfield was cleared.  The Richard Jewell of the Anthrax investigation. Ivins is dead by a self inflicted overdose.

 

There will be no trial. No facing your accuser. No closure.  America is left to wonder. Did the FBI finally get its man?

 

So, the FBI did the best think I think it could do in this situation.  It released mountains of evidence.   As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, once wrote: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

 

I’ve read the affidavits. A circumstantial case. Some parts strong – other parts purely speculative.

 

Only 10-12 people in the world had access to Anthrax that killed 5 and sickened 17. Ivins was one of them.

 

I recommend you read the documents for yourself, then decide.

 

The case is so convincing at times, I can’t help but wonder, why wasn’t Ivins in the FBI crosshairs earlier?   And why did the FBI focus so intently and for so long on Steven Hatfield?

 

But, remembering back to the shock and sadness of September 12th and the fear of the weeks of Anthrax injuries and deaths piling up across the country, I can’t help but think:   If Bruce Ivins is the anthrax killer; it makes me livid that he was able to determine on his own time, in his own way, how the story would end.

He was the voice of the Braves, and by virtue of that position, a voice of Atlanta.

I’m not sure I remember the first time I heard him, but I do remember thinking, there is something unique and different about this guy.

 

Skip Caray came to Atlanta to escape the shadow of his legendary father, Harry Caray.

 

We were lucky.

 

I vaguely remember his Hawks broadcasts, but vividly remember his humor, his sarcasm, his deadpan, dead on description of the Atlanta Braves. 

 

I didn’t know him well, but have never forgotten the first time I met him. 

 

It was long ago, perhaps 1979, maybe early 80’s.  It was a night, when you end up at a party, at a place, and then travel to another place, and find yourself at a bar with old friends whom you’ve never met before. 

 

Tom Houck, then a budding journalist, who had written a gossip column (The Tattler) for the long gone alternative newspaper, Atlanta Gazette and was  beginning a broadcast career for WGST, welcomed me over to the bar at Harrison’s.

 

He was sitting with Skip Caray.  I joined them, and sat with rapt attention as Skip proceeded to tell war story after war story, keeping me in stitches, and forever endearing me to his unique sense of humor.

 

I was a cub reporter for an all news radio station and he was a big time star.  But, late at night, at Harrison’s, Skip was like that best friend you hadn’t seen since high school.

 

I remember coming to the time when we had to pay the bill. Tom had left to rub shoulders with another group.  Skip flippantly told the bartender, when he slipped us our bill:  “Put, it on Tom’s tab.”  And, we did.

 

(Tom if you read this, I owe you for a couple of beers. Well, maybe more than a couple.)

 

I looked a the clock and muttered, “It is so late, my wife will kill me.”  I was newly married and still hadn’t figured out that boys can’t be boys the same way they could be when they were single.

 

Skip knew better.   And Skip did a simple thing, I’ve never forgotten.

 

He wrote me a note.  An excuse.  Just like the kind your mother wrote for you when you were sick and going to miss school.

 

He wrote it on a napkin.  Addressed to my wife, it began “Please excuse Dale for being out late…..”  I don’t remember the rest, but it was some lame excuse for my late night carousing, during a newly minted marriage.

 

My wife woke up the next morning, with my note on the kitchen table.  Thank, goodness she has a sense of humor.  

 

Every time I would see Skip, which was rarely, with often years in between, he’d snap: “Dale, what ya’ doing ?  You going to need a note for later tonight?”  

 

No, Skip, not this time.   This time, I’ve got one for you.

 

No excuses, no explanations, just a thank you for forty years of excellence.  You are an integral part of the fabric of our city and you will be missed.   

 

Atlanta has lost a piece of its soul. 

 

For the man, who will forever live in our memory and on DVD, screaming “Braves win, Braves win” we’d like to say…..so did we, Skip. So did we.

 

 

In May, we did a story on MARTA's idling buses at the Avondale Rail-yard.

MARTA had no written policy for idling.

Odd, for a huge organization that has written policies on how to find the cafeteria.

MARTA also didn't believe they were idling buses at night.

After all, that would be stupid.  It wastes money, pollutes the environment and upsets  some of the neighbors.

But one neighbor counted the idling buses.  He found around 200.  Sitting and idling.  On two different nights.

MARTA investigated and came out with.....(trumpets please) a new written policy.

So, did it make a difference?

Watch tonight and you'll see.

 

We ran a story last week on Cherokee County sheriff Roger Garrison's charity.

Great idea. Raise money for charity.  Go around the county and give money away to other charities.

One problem, the charity was illegal.

The top law enforcement officer of the county didn't follow the law.  He never registered his charity with the state, as the law requires.

Which could raise a sticky tax issue for the sheriff. If the money wasn't a legal charity, then what is it? 

The sheriff  admits the charity is a political plus for him, but says it was an honest mistake that he didn't register.

I left town before posting about our story, so I invite you to check it out and weigh in.

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/Home/De
tail;jsessionid=AC50B51D029F74F14A12A1B272E5BA34?conten
tId=6954635&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&page
Id=1.1.1&sflg=1

When I got back to town, I noticed the political blogs all picked up the story and the debate was raging.

We can't have that without the Fox 5 viewers getting a chance to have their say.

So, tell me what you think.

 

Mysterious envelopes.

Cash payments.

Furtive phone calls.

Secret meetings.

The I-team undercover team follows the trail of a man of God in his effort to reconnect with the woman suing him for sexual abuse.

Tonight at Six and again at Ten, and always, on myfoxatlanta.com

 

It began with a plan.

Mysterious envelopes.

Cash payments.

Furtive phone calls.

Covert meetings.

We have the undercover story of Archbishop Earl Paulk's secret settlement talks. 

The story airs Monday and Tuesday at six and ten, and on the internet.

Please pass the word to all who have followed this saga.

The tip was the perfect story for an upcoming July ratings book.

A widow, who just buried her husband, a decorated veteran, was aghast to find that the American flag provided to her for her husband’s burial by the Veterans Administration was made in China.

I didn’t even know the VA provided burial flags for all veterans.

Her husband’s brother, the tipster, was angrier than a Michael Vick pit bull left on a leash.

The woman lived in Ohio. How do we prove what happened?

I’ll give you the Cliff Notes  version, so you can get a glimpse of the joys of investigative reporting:

Check with the VA to find out who the flag vendors are and what the burial flag law states.  This takes days of phone calls, back and forth.

Find out all burial flags have to be made in America.

File a Freedom on Information request for the names of all American flag vendors doing business with the Government.

Call the funeral home in Ohio to make sure there was no simple mistake.

After learning the funeral home gets the burial flags from the local Post Office, call the Postmaster in the woman’s home town.

Talk to the funeral home director three times, the post master twice: convinced there was no mistake at this level. The flag must have been delivered with the “Made in China” tag.

Consider this probable cause to begin shooting video and continue researching the story.

Interview, on camera, the brother and his boss, a veteran as well. They are mortified that the US government would send a “Made in China” flag for a veteran’s funeral.

Set up plane fare to Ohio to photograph the flag and interview the woman.

Shoot video, stand ups, and teases during Memorial Day activities in Duluth. Interview owner of a Flag Company in Duluth; set up for an on camera interview later.

Send photographer on Memorial Day to shoot flag activities and one Memorial service for a veteran. Photographer, on his own initiative, shoots interviews with family members and military commanders at Memorial Day service about the “Made in China” issue.

Contact VA and they begin a preliminary investigation. They can't believe it has happened.

Widow calls to say she’s coming to Atlanta to visit family. She will bring the flag.

Cancel flight plans.

Two weeks later, meet widow at family’s house. She’s not there. Call her. She says “you didn’t get my message.” Feel the bottom of my stomach open up; heartburn soon to follow.

“No.”   Widow informs me that the night before, she unfolded the flag for her family, and couldn’t find the tag. But, she did find a “Made in America” tag. In fact, made in Alabama by disabled workers.

Stomach unleashes torrent; TUMS soon to follow.

While talking to the widow, I see flag in its triangular shaped case next to kitchen table. As she is saying “I don’t know why I thought the flag was Made in China,” act upon a hunch. I pick up the case and turn it over. On the back a sticker: “Made in China”

Stomach unloads; thank God I didn’t charge two plane tickets on Fox American Express card.

July Ratings Story goes down the tubes. Consider going back to teaching. Look at list of other “promising” stories to work on. Another fun day/week/ no, month, in the I-team office.

Well, at least I got a blog out of it.

As we love to say around here: “It’s never easy, even when it’s easy.”

There is nothing I like better than a great speech: a lofty theme, well written, and delivered by a speaker with a perfect passion for its message.

Martin Luther King's  "I Have a Dream" speech was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial two score and five years ago.

It was, many would argue, a perfect speech.

Some sixteen minutes, with soaring imagery, pitch perfect biblical nuances, and an uplifting message for Americans in a time of racial turmoil. The message: some day the children of slaves and slave owners would walk together as brothers and sisters.

Forty five years to the day after that speech, Barrack Obama will stand before the nation and accept the Democratic party’s nomination as its candidate for the presidency.

It will be a moment, rich with history, and dripping with symbolism.

It will be a day, as a young African American girl said on TV last night, that an entire generation of children will realize that “I can grow up to be anything I want to be, even president.”

It will be a day, like the day, Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned.  A day when as King dreamed  “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Who would ever have dreamed that seven years after Islamic terrorists flew planes into the Twin towers, America would select as one of its two candidates for the presidency, the son of a Muslim, whose middle name is Hussein?

No matter who wins in November, I’d like to think we have sent the world a message.

That in this country, the content of your character is what matters. In this country, “the sweltering heat of injustice” has truly been transformed. In this country, we all walk, even if only for a moment, together as brothers and sisters.

Just as King dreamed.